SKRH-Hospital Earns National Recognition for Dedication to Continuous Quality Improvement


	Pictured in photo: Shaughnessy-Kaplan’s Transitional Care Unit Staff

	About Shaughnessy-Kaplan Rehabilitation Hospital Shaughnessy-Kaplan Rehabilitation Hospital is a 160-bed specialty hospital in Salem serving the citizens of the North Shore and eastern Massachusetts. The hospital provides two levels of inpatient care including long-term acute care (LTAC) and Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF). Shaughnessy-Kaplan also has 6 outpatient rehabilitation clinics that provide comprehensive rehabilitative services in the areas of physical therapy, occupational therapy and swallowing & speech therapy. For more information visit www.skrh.org. About the Spaulding Rehabilitation Network The Spaulding Rehabilitation Network creates a unique convergence of comprehensive specialties to handle the demands of post-acute care in the 21st century. The Spaulding Rehabilitation Network is made up of Spaulding and Shaughnessy-Kaplan Rehabilitation Hospitals and the Boston and North End Rehabilitation Centers and The Clark House skilled nursing facilities. As a member of the Partners Healthcare system, the Spaulding Rehabilitation Network has access to world-class medical specialists and services.




	Salem, MA – The Transitional Care Unit at Shaughnessy-Kaplan Rehabilitation Hospital has earned the American Health Care Association and the National Center For Assisted Living’s (AHCA/NCAL) Quality Award for demonstrating a strong commitment to continuous quality improvement. Shaughnessy is honored to be one of only a select number of hospitals nationwide to receive this prestigious national award. “The AHCA/NCAL Quality Awards – comprised of three levels, a Step I award, a more rigorous Step II award, and a comprehensive Step III award are the most prestigious recognition of quality within the long term care profession,” stated Bruce Yarwood, AHCA/NCAL President and CEO. As a Step I recipient, Shaughnessy demonstrated its organization-wide commitment to a customer-focused facility mission, defined its principal customers and their expectations, and indicated ways that it is striving to meet their needs. “Shaughnessy-Kaplan’s Step I award shows that our team of dedicated frontline caregivers are demonstrating their commitment to quality of care and meeting the needs of our patients,” added Maureen Banks, President and CEO of Shaughnessy-Kaplan Rehabilitation Hospital. “The quality award program has retained many of the features that makes it an independently judged, criteria-based award program relying extensively on approximately 100 volunteer trained examiners,” stated Bernie Dana, Chair of the Quality Award Board of Overseers. “This quality award program continues to be a valuable framework and tool to facilities that are developing a systems-based perspective to achieve performance excellence.” AHCA/NCAL’s Quality Award is modeled after the criteria of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation’s premier award recognizing distinguished achievements. AHCA/NCAL’s award is designed to support both continuous quality improvement efforts in long term care by promoting quality awareness and education, and to recognize quality achievements. Shaughnessy-Kaplan Rehabilitation Hospital was honored for their achievement and presented with their award during AHCA/NCAL’s 59th Annual Convention and Exposition, October 5-8, 2008 in Nashville, TN.


	©Copyright 2008 Shaughnessy-Kaplan Rehabilitation Hospital